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That sounded weak to me. “Does Margaret know about this yet?”

“I just spoke with her.”

I tried to sift through everything. “So do you think Professor Lebreau might have left Michigan of her own accord? Come to DC to see Rodale?”

“Man, I don’t know what to think. I arrive at Reagan National at 9:02. We’ll sort it out then.”

“Call me as soon as you land.”

We hung up.

Rodale?

I had no idea what to make of that. I pulled up the case files on Basque and started to look for anything that might connect him more closely not only to Renee Lebreau but also to FBI Director Gregory Rodale.

Margaret could hardly believe what she’d discovered.

The Gunderson Foundation was nonprofit, yes, but the two neuroscience research companies that supported Fischer’s campaign were not. And Rodale held enough shares in each company, so that if their stock rose just 10 percent he would stand to make tens of thousands. If either stock doubled, he would make millions.

He’d purchased the stocks just after Project Rukh was terminated, just before he allowed the research to be acquired by the Gunderson Foundation.

While it was true that the Project Rukh files would have eventually ended up being released through a Freedom of Information Act request, he’d approved their release prematurely.

And now, considering his financial investments, Margaret could see why.

But then why did he tell Bowers about the Project Rukh connection yesterday? Why draw attention to it?

She didn’t know. Maybe after the attack on Twana Summie at the Gunderson facility, Rodale realized it was too late to keep all of this under wraps; that the connections would eventually surface.

She paused.

She’d been the one to recover the Project Rukh files in February.

Rodale could tie them back to you.

Maybe he knew that everything was about to hit the fan and he was positioning someone else in front of him so he could walk away clean. That might be why he put her in charge of the case.

Time to have a little sit-down with her boss.

Margaret strode down the hall to Rodale’s office but found that he’d already left for home.

She called his cell.

“Greg, it’s Margaret.”

“Yes?” There was a lot of noise in the background. Maybe he was in a restaurant.

“We need to talk.”

“Was there a break in the Fischer case?”

“No. It might be better if we spoke in person. About this matter.”

A pause. “What is this concerning?”

“Project Rukh.”

Rodale said nothing. She went on, “I happened upon the memos. And I find your interest in nanotechnology fascinating. Would you like to wait until after my press conference to chat?”

A moment passed, then he gave her the name of a pub near his home. “Eight o’clock,” he said.

“Eight o’clock,” she echoed. “Semansky’s Bar. On 4th.”

As she hung up the phone, she took a deep breath of both anticipation and hesitation.

Things were about to get very, very sticky.

Tessa stepped into the house.

Locked the doors.

Gave Detective Warren a call.

“I’ll be right over,” she told Tessa. “Do you need me to bring dinner?”

There was still some of Lien-hua’s leftover Chinese from last night, but Tessa decided not to suggest that. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”

“No meat or meat by-products, right?”

“Right.”

“I’ll see you in a bit.”

Tessa hung up.

And set up the chessboard.

Black versus white.

The two colors every piece, every person, travels across at some point during the game.

Brad parked across the street from EAD Wellington’s house. From his research and prior excursions to the house, he knew the pass code to her security system.

No car in the driveway. The window to her garage revealed it was empty. But to be safe, he drew his gun and held it beneath his jacket while he crossed the street.

As he ascended the porch steps, he heard the jangle of Lewis’s collar just inside the door. The golden retriever gave a friendly bark.

Brad picked the lock.

Entered the house, and as Lewis watched him, he located the security touchpad control on the wall.

“Good doggie,” he said as he closed the door behind him.

97

2 hours left…

7:29 p.m.

I found no connections to Director Rodale in Basque’s files.

Figuring that Ralph and Margaret would be looking more closely into that tunnel, I turned my attention back to the relationships we were aware of.

I typed: Vice President Fischer is tied to Lansing. Lansing is tied to Basque. Basque is tied to Lebreau. Lebreau is tied to Rodale. Rodale is tied to…?

As I was puzzling over the list, I heard footsteps, light, quick. I looked up to see Lien-hua on her way toward me. She read the weariness, the frustration on my face. “You look whipped.”

“Well, at least my looks aren’t deceiving.”

“Did the custody meeting go all right?”

I realized I hadn’t spoken with her about it yet. “It was okay. I think things will work out. You heard about Basque? That he was there?”

“Yes.” She seemed distracted. Something was on her mind. “And I heard that Anderson lost him.”

I refrained from commenting, just nodded. “Ralph’s on his way back. Should get in a little after 9:00. Oh, and Rodale knows Lebreau.”

“I heard that too-listen, Pat.” She lowered her voice until she was speaking to me almost in a whisper. “I may have found out why the dog didn’t bark.”

“Go on.”

“Let me get my files. I’ll meet you upstairs. Room 413.”

Curious now.

Very curious.

“Why upstairs?”

“Trust me. Five minutes.”

She left, I checked my text messages and confirmed that Tessa was all right. As I was collecting my things, one of the agents dialed up the volume of a television screen mounted near the ceiling at the far side of the room.

“Unnamed sources,” the announcer was saying, “have confirmed that Congressman Fischer has made significant contributions to the Gunderson Foundation. In light of the Foundation’s application for government funding for controversial nanotechnology research, Republican lawmakers are calling the news ‘striking’ and ‘revealing.’ We’ll have more as things develop…”

Federal funding.

Nanotechnology research?

Interesting.

A cavern I hadn’t thought of.

I jogged up the stairs to hear what Lien-hua had to say.

98

“Natasha Farraday,” she told me.

“What?” We were in a vacant office on the fourth floor and she was spreading a stack of files across the table.

“I think we should take a closer look at her.”

“You think she might be one of the killers?” I was shocked. “And what? Cassidy is her partner?”

“I’m only saying they warrant a closer look.”

“Run it down.”

“Remember how earlier today I was looking into law enforcement connections? I started with the six names you gave me, but that didn’t take me anywhere.”

“And then you were going to explore the lack of DNA evidence.”

“Yes, but here was the problem: since we hadn’t found evidentiary DNA at the scene, we’d been assuming the killers hadn’t left any.”

I considered her words. “That assumption seems pretty well-founded.”

“I decided to assume the opposite.”

“You assumed that the killers did leave their DNA.”

Yes. Nice.

She pulled the lab analysis reports from the stack of papers.

“I had the lab rerun the samples, you know, in case the killers had tried to alter or fake the evidence, but it all came back with the same results, so I took a closer look at the evidence that we did have, the DNA that would naturally be present-”